XVI

A call
for careful navigation --Three hours' steering in
twenty-three days --Arrival at the Keeling Cocos
Islands --A curious chapter of social history --A
welcome from the children of the islands
--Cleaning and painting the Spray on
the beach --A Mohammedan blessing for a pot of jam
--Keeling as a paradise --A risky adventure in a
small boat --Away to Rodriguez --Taken for
Anti-christ --The governor calms the fears of the
people --A lecture --A convent in the hills

TO
the Keeling Cocos Islands was now only five
hundred and fifty miles; but even in this short
run it was necessary to be extremely careful in
keeping a true course else I would miss the atoll.

On the 12th, some hundred miles southwest of
Christmas Island, I saw anti-trade clouds flying
up from the southwest very high over the regular
winds, which weakened now for a few days, while a
swell heavier than usual set in also from the
southwest. A winter gale was going on in the
direction of the Cape of Good Hope. Accordingly,
I steered higher to windward, allowing twenty
miles a day while this went on, for change of
current; and it was not too much, for on that
course I made the Keeling Islands right ahead.
The first unmistakable sign of the land was a
visit one morning from a white tern that fluttered
very knowingly about the vessel, and then took
itself off westward with a businesslike air in its
wing. The tern is called by the islanders the
"pilot of Keeling Cocos." Farther on I
came among a great number of birds fishing, and
fighting over whatever they caught. My reckoning
was up, and springing aloft, I saw from half-way
up the mast cocoanut-trees standing out of the
water ahead. I expected to see this; still, it
thrilled me as an electric shock might have done.
I slid down the mast, trembling under the
strangest sensations; and not able to resist the
impulse, I sat on deck and gave way to my
emotions. To folks in a parlor on shore this may
seem weak indeed, but I am telling the story of a
voyage alone.

I didn't touch the helm, for with the current
and heave of the sea the sloop found herself at
the end of the run absolutely in the fairway of
the channel. You couldn't have beaten it in the
navy! Then I trimmed her sails by the wind, took
the helm, and flogged her up the couple of miles
or so abreast the harbor landing, where I cast
anchor at 3:30 P. M.,
July 17, 1897, twenty-three days from Thursday
Island. The distance run was twenty-seven hundred
miles as the crow flies. This would have been a
fair Atlantic voyage. It was a delightful sail!
During those twenty-three days I had not spent
altogether more than three hours at the helm,
including the time occupied in beating into
Keeling harbor. I just lashed the helm and let
her go; whether the wind was abeam or dead aft, it
was all the same: she always sailed on her course.
No part of the voyage up to this point, taking it
by and large, had been so finished as this. [note 1]

The Keeling Cocos Islands, according to Admiral
Fitzroy, R. N., lie between the latitudes of
11 degrees 50' and 12 degrees 12' S., and the
longitudes of 96 degrees 51' and 96 degrees 58' E.
They were discovered in 1608-9 by Captain William
Keeling, then in the service of the East India
Company. The southern group consists of seven or
eight islands and islets on the atoll, which is
the skeleton of what some day, according to the
history of coral reefs, will be a continuous
island. North Keeling has no harbor, is seldom
visited, and is of no importance. The South
Keelings are a strange little world, with a
romantic history all their own. They have been
visited occasionally by the floating spar of some
hurricane-swept ship, or by a tree that has
drifted all the way from Australia, or by an
ill-starred ship cast away, and finally by man.
Even a rock once drifted to Keeling, held fast
among the roots of a tree.

After the discovery of the islands by Captain
Keeling, their first notable visitor was Captain
John Clunis-Ross, who in 1814 touched in the ship
Borneo on a voyage to India. Captain
Ross returned two years later with his wife and
family and his mother-in-law, Mrs. Dymoke, and
eight sailor-artisans, to take possession of the
islands, but found there already one Alexander
Hare, who meanwhile had marked the little atoll as
a sort of Eden for a seraglio of Malay women which
he moved over from the coast of Africa. It was
Ross's own brother, oddly enough, who freighted
Hare and his crowd of women to the islands, not
knowing of Captain John's plans to occupy the
little world. And so Hare was there with his
outfit, as if he had come to stay.

On his previous visit, however, Ross had nailed
the English Jack to a mast on Horsburg Island, one
of the group. After two years shreds of it still
fluttered in the wind, and his sailors, nothing
loath, began at once the invasion of the new
kingdom to take possession of it, women and all.
The force of forty women, with only one man to
command them, was not equal to driving eight
sturdy sailors back into the sea. [note 2]

From this time on Hare had a hard time of it.
He and Ross did not get on well as neighbors. The
islands were too small and too near for characters
so widely different. Hare had "oceans of
money," and might have lived well in London;
but he had been governor of a wild colony in
Borneo, and could not confine himself to the tame
life that prosy civilization affords. And so he
hung on to the atoll with his forty women,
retreating little by little before Ross and his
sturdy crew, till at last he found himself and his
harem on the little island known to this day as
Prison Island, where, like Bluebeard, he confined
his wives in a castle. The channel between the
islands was narrow, the water was not deep, and
the eight Scotch sailors wore long boots. Hare
was now dismayed. He tried to compromise with rum
and other luxuries, but these things only made
matters worse. On the day following the first St.
Andrew's celebration on the island, Hare, consumed
with rage, and no longer on speaking terms with
the captain, dashed off a note to him, saying:
"DEAR Ross: I thought when I sent rum and
roast pig to your sailors that they would stay
away from my flower-garden." In reply to
which the captain, burning with indignation,
shouted from the center of the island, where he
stood, "Ahoy, there, on Prison Island! You
Hare, don't you know that rum and roast pig are
not a sailor's heaven?" Hare said afterward
that one might have heard the captain's roar
across to Java.

The lawless establishment was soon broken up by
the women deserting Prison Island and putting
themselves under Ross's protection. Hare then
went to Batavia, where he met his death.

My first impression upon landing was that the
crime of infanticide had not reached the islands
of Keeling Cocos. "The children have all
come to welcome you," explained Mr. Ross, as
they mustered at the jetty by hundreds, of all
ages and sizes. The people of this country were
all rather shy, but, young or old, they never
passed one or saw one passing their door without a
salutation. In their musical voices they would
say, "Are you walking?" ("Jalan,
jalan?") "Will you come along?" one
would answer.

For a long time after I arrived the children
regarded the "one-man ship" with
suspicion and fear. A native man had been blown
away to sea many years before, and they hinted to
one another that he might have been changed from
black to white, and returned in the sloop. For
some time every movement I made was closely
watched. They were particularly interested in
what I ate. One day, after I had been
"boot-topping" the sloop with a
composition of coal-tar and other stuff, and while
I was taking my dinner, with the luxury of
blackberry jam, I heard a commotion, and then a
yell and a stampede, as the children ran away
yelling: "The captain is eating coal-tar!
The captain is eating coal-tar!" But they
soon found out that this same "coal-tar"
was very good to eat, and that I had brought a
quantity of it. One day when I was spreading a
sea-biscuit thick with it for a wide-awake
youngster, I heard them whisper,
"Chut-chut!" meaning that a shark had
bitten my hand, which they observed was lame.
Thenceforth they regarded me as a hero, and I had
not fingers enough for the little bright-eyed tots
that wanted to cling to them and follow me about.
Before this, when I held out my hand and said,
"Come!" they would shy off for the
nearest house, and say, "Dingin"
("It's cold "), or "Ujan"
("It's going to rain"). But it was now
accepted that I was not the returned spirit of the
lost black, and I had plenty of friends about the
island, rain or shine.

One day after this, when I tried to haul the
sloop and found her fast in the sand, the children
all clapped their hands and cried that a
kpeting (crab) was holding her by the
keel; and little Ophelia, ten or twelve years of
age, wrote in the Spray's log-book:

A hundred men with
might and main
On the windlass hove, yeo
ho! The cable only came in twain;
The ship
she would not go; For, child, to tell the
strangest thing, The keel was held by a great
kpeting.

This being so or not, it was decided that the
Mohammedan priest, Sama the Emim, for a pot of
jam, should ask Mohammed to bless the voyage and
make the crab let go the sloop's keel, which it
did, if it had hold, and she floated on the very
next tide.

On the 22d of July arrived H. M. S.
Iphegenia, with Mr. Justice Andrew
J. Leech and court officers on board, on a circuit
of inspection among the Straits Settlements, of
which Keeling Cocos was a dependency, to hear
complaints and try cases by law, if any there were
to try. They found the Spray hauled
ashore and tied to a cocoanut-tree. But at the
Keeling Islands there had not been a grievance to
complain of since the day that Hare migrated, for
the Rosses have always treated the islanders as
their own family.

If there is a paradise on this earth it is
Keeling. There was not a case for a lawyer, but
something had to be done, for here were two ships
in port, a great man-of-war and the
Spray. Instead of a lawsuit a dance
was got up, and all the officers who could leave
their ship came ashore. Everybody on the island
came, old and young, and the governor's great hall
was filled with people. All that could get on
their feet danced, while the babies lay in heaps
in the corners of the room, content to look on.
My little friend Ophelia danced with the judge.
For music two fiddles screeched over and over
again the good old tune, "We won't go home
till morning." And we did not.

The women at the Keelings do not do all the
drudgery, as in many places visited on the voyage.
It would cheer the heart of a Fuegian woman to see
the Keeling lord of creation up a cocoanut-tree.
Besides cleverly climbing the trees, the men of
Keeling build exquisitely modeled canoes. By far
the best workmanship in boat-building I saw on the
voyage was here. Many finished mechanics dwelt
under the palms at Keeling, and the hum of the
band-saw and the ring of the anvil were heard from
morning till night. The first Scotch settlers
left there the strength of Northern blood and the
inheritance of steady habits. No benevolent
society has ever done so much for any islanders as
the noble Captain Ross, and his sons, who have
followed his example of industry and thrift.

Admiral Fitzroy of the Beagle, who
visited here, where many things are reversed,
spoke of "these singular though small
islands, where crabs eat cocoanuts, fish eat
coral, dogs catch fish, men ride on turtles, and
shells are dangerous man-traps," adding that
the greater part of the sea-fowl roost on
branches, and many rats make their nests in the
tops of palm-trees.

My vessel being refitted, I decided to load her
with the famous mammoth tridacna shell of Keeling,
found in the bayou near by. And right here,
within sight of the village, I came near losing
"the crew of the
Spray"--not from putting my foot
in a man-trap shell, however, but from carelessly
neglecting to look after the details of a trip
across the harbor in a boat. I had sailed over
oceans; I have since completed a course over them
all, and sailed round the whole world without so
nearly meeting a fatality as on that trip across a
lagoon, where I trusted all to some one else, and
he, weak mortal that he was, perhaps trusted all
to me. However that may be, I found myself with a
thoughtless African negro in a rickety bateau that
was fitted with a rotten sail, and this blew away
in mid-channel in a squall, that sent us drifting
helplessly to sea, where we should have been
incontinently lost. With the whole ocean before
us to leeward, I was dismayed to see, while we
drifted, that there was not a paddle or an oar in
the boat! There was an anchor, to be sure, but
not enough rope to tie a cat, and we were already
in deep water. By great good fortune, however,
there was a pole. Plying this as a paddle with
the utmost energy, and by the merest accidental
flaw in the wind to favor us, the trap of a boat
was worked into shoal water, where we could touch
bottom and push her ashore. With Africa, the
nearest coast to leeward, three thousand miles
away, with not so much as a drop of water in the
boat, and a lean and hungry negro--well, cast the
lot as one might, the crew of the
Spray in a little while would have
been hard to find. It is needless to say that I
took no more such chances. The tridacna were
afterward procured in a safe boat, thirty of them
taking the place of three tons of cement ballast,
which I threw overboard to make room and give
buoyancy.

On August 22, the kpeting, or whatever else it
was that held the sloop in the islands, let go its
hold, and she swung out to sea under all sail,
heading again for home. Mounting one or two heavy
rollers on the fringe of the atoll, she cleared
the flashing reefs. Long before dark Keeling
Cocos, with its thousand souls, as sinless in
their lives as perhaps it is possible for frail
mortals to be, was left out of sight, astern. Out
of sight, I say, except in my strongest affection.

The sea was rugged, and the Spray
washed heavily when hauled on the wind, which
course I took for the island of Rodriguez, and
which brought the sea abeam. The true course for
the island was west by south, one quarter south,
and the distance was nineteen hundred miles; but I
steered considerably to the windward of that to
allow for the heave of the sea and other leeward
effects. My sloop on this course ran under reefed
sails for days together. I naturally tired of the
never-ending motion of the sea, and, above all, of
the wetting I got whenever I showed myself on
deck. Under these heavy weather conditions the
Spray seemed to lag behind on her
course; at least, I attributed to these conditions
a discrepancy in the log, which by the fifteenth
day out from Keeling amounted to one hundred and
fifty miles between the rotator and the mental
calculations I had kept of what she should have
gone, and so I kept an eye lifting for land. I
could see about sundown this day a bunch of clouds
that stood in one spot, right ahead, while the
other clouds floated on; this was a sign of
something. By midnight, as the sloop sailed on, a
black object appeared where I had seen the resting
clouds. It was still a long way off, but there
could be no mistaking this: it was the high island
of Rodriguez. I hauled in the patent log, which I
was now towing more from habit than from
necessity, for I had learned the
Spray and her ways long before this.
If one thing was clearer than another in her
voyage, it was that she could be trusted to come
out right and in safety, though at the same time I
always stood ready to give her the benefit of even
the least doubt. The officers who are over-sure,
and "know it all like a book," are the
ones, I have observed, who wreck the most ships
and lose the most lives. The cause of the
discrepancy in the log was one often met with,
namely, coming in contact with some large fish;
two out of the four blades of the rotator were
crushed or bent, the work probably of a shark.
Being sure of the sloop's position, I lay down to
rest and to think, and I felt better for it. By
daylight the island was abeam, about three miles
away. It wore a hard, weather-beaten appearance
there, all alone, far out in the Indian Ocean,
like land adrift. The windward side was
uninviting, but there was a good port to leeward,
and I hauled in now close on the wind for that. A
pilot came out to take me into the inner harbor,
which was reached through a narrow channel among
coral reefs.

It was a curious thing that at all of the
islands some reality was insisted on as unreal,
while improbabilities were clothed as hard facts;
and so it happened here that the good abbé,
a few days before, had been telling his people
about the coming of Antichrist, and when they saw
the Spray sail into the harbor, all
feather-white before a gale of wind, and run all
standing upon the beach, and with only one man
aboard, they cried, "May the Lord help us, it
is he, and he has come in a boat!" which I
say would have been the most improbable way of his
coming. Nevertheless, the news went flying
through the place. The governor of the island,
Mr. Roberts, came down immediately to see what it
was all about, for the little town was in a great
commotion. One elderly woman, when she heard of
my advent, made for her house and locked herself
in. When she heard that I was actually coming up
the street she barricaded her doors, and did not
come out while I was on the island, a period of
eight days. Governor Roberts and his family did
not share the fears of their people, but came on
board at the jetty, where the sloop was berthed,
and their example induced others to come also.
The governor's young boys took charge of the
Spray's dinghy at once, and my visit
cost his Excellency, besides great hospitality to
me, the building of a boat for them like the one
belonging to the Spray.

My first day at this Land of Promise was to me
like a fairy-tale. For many days I had studied
the charts and counted the time of my arrival at
this spot, as one might his entrance to the
Islands of the Blessed, looking upon it as the
terminus of the last long run, made irksome by the
want of many things with which, from this time on,
I could keep well supplied. And behold, here was
the sloop, arrived, and made securely fast to a
pier in Rodriguez. On the first evening ashore,
in the land of napkins and cut glass, I saw before
me still the ghosts of hempen towels and of mugs
with handles knocked off. Instead of tossing on
the sea, however, as I might have been, here was I
in a bright hall, surrounded by sparkling wit, and
dining with the governor of the island!
"Aladdin," I cried, "where is your
lamp? My fisherman's lantern, which I got at
Gloucester, has shown me better things than your
smoky old burner ever revealed."

The second day in port was spent in receiving
visitors. Mrs. Roberts and her children came
first to "shake hands," they said,
"with the Spray." No one
was now afraid to come on board except the poor
old woman, who still maintained that the
Spray had Antichrist in the hold, if,
indeed, he had not already gone ashore. The
governor entertained that evening, and kindly
invited the "destroyer of the world" to
speak for himself. This he did, elaborating most
effusively on the dangers of the sea (which, after
the manner of many of our frailest mortals, he
would have had smooth had he made it); also by
contrivances of light and darkness he exhibited on
the wall pictures of the places and countries
visited on the voyage (nothing like the countries,
however, that he would have made), and of the
people seen, savage and other, frequently
groaning, "Wicked world! Wicked world!"
When this was finished his Excellency the
governor, speaking words of thankfulness,
distributed pieces of gold.

On the following day I accompanied his
Excellency and family on a visit to San Gabriel,
which was up the country among the hills. The
good abbé of San Gabriel entertained us all
royally at the convent, and we remained his guests
until the following day. As I was leaving his
place, the abbé said, "Captain, I
embrace you, and of whatever religion you may be,
my wish is that you succeed in making your voyage,
and that our Saviour the Christ be always with
you!" To this good man's words I could only
say, "My dear abbé, had all
religionists been so liberal there would have been
less bloodshed in the world."

At Rodriguez one may now find every convenience
for filling pure and wholesome water in any
quantity, Governor Roberts having built a
reservoir in the hills, above the village, and
laid pipes to the jetty, where, at the time of my
visit, there were five and a half feet at high
tide. In former years well-water was used, and
more or less sickness occurred from it. Beef may
be had in any quantity on the island, and at a
moderate price. Sweet potatoes were plentiful and
cheap; the large sack of them that I bought there
for about four shillings kept unusually well. I
simply stored them in the sloop's dry hold. Of
fruits, pomegranates were most plentiful; for two
shillings I obtained a large sack of them, as many
as a donkey could pack from the orchard, which, by
the way, was planted by nature herself.

[Note
1]: Mr. Andrew J. Leach, reporting, July
21, 1897, through Governor Kynnersley of
Singapore, to Joseph Chamberlain, Colonial
Secretary, said concerning the
Iphegenia's visit to the atoll:
"As we left the ocean depths of deepest blue
and entered the coral circle, the contrast was
most remarkable. The brilliant colors of the
waters, transparent to a depth of over thirty
feet, now purple, now of the bluest sky-blue, and
now green, with the white crests of the waves
flashing under a brilliant sun, the encircling .
. . palm-clad islands, the gaps between which
were to the south undiscernible, the white sand
shores and the whiter gaps where breakers
appeared, and, lastly, the lagoon itself, seven or
eight miles across from north to south, and five
to six from east to west, presented a sight never
to be forgotten. After some little delay, Mr.
Sidney Ross, the eldest son of Mr. George Ross,
came off to meet us, and soon after, accompanied
by the doctor and another officer, we went ashore.

"On reaching the landing-stage, we found,
hauled up for cleaning, etc., the
Spray of Boston, a yawl of 12.70 tons
gross, the property of Captain Joshua Slocum. He
arrived at the island on the 17th of July,
twenty-three days out from Thursday Island. This
extraordinary solitary traveler left Boston some
two years ago single-handed, crossed to Gibraltar,
sailed down to Cape Horn, passed through the
Strait of Magellan to the Society Islands, thence
to Australia, and through the Torres Strait to
Thursday Island."

[Note
2]: In the accounts given in Findlay's
"Sailing Directory" of some of the
events there is a chronological discrepancy. I
follow the accounts gathered from the old
captain's grandsons and from records on the spot.